Bushkill Creek, Easton Dry yet Again

I'm basing my uneducated guess on the fish being a dried up brown and not a rainbow on a couple of things...

All the wild fish I've caught in the Bushkill around Tatamy (Section 4) over the years have been wild brown trout. I can't recall a single rainbow even though I know they are stocked in Section 5.

I know it means nothing but I have caught what appeared to be stream-bred rainbows in few other streams in Northampton County over the years, but the Bushkill isn't one of them.

IF the fish is a rainbow and stocked, it looks a little small to me for a stocker that would most likely be from stockings more than two months ago. If it is a stream-bred rainbow, I would expect to see a few more dead wild rainbows to appear in other photos.

I think the "pink stripe" is just an illusion due to the fish being obviously dead and dried up.

The spots appear too large (to me) to be the spots on a rainbow however that spot pattern is exactly what I see on wild Bushkill browns.

All this speculation brings us to the most important question:

Stocked or wild? 😉
 
Bamboozle said:
I'm basing my uneducated guess on the fish being a dried up brown and not a rainbow on a couple of things...

All the wild fish I've caught in the Bushkill around Tatamy (Section 4) over the years have been wild brown trout. I can't recall a single rainbow even though I know they are stocked in Section 5.

I know it means nothing but I have caught what appeared to be stream-bred rainbows in few other streams in Northampton County over the years, but the Bushkill isn't one of them.

IF the fish is a rainbow and stocked, it looks a little small to me for a stocker that would most likely be from stockings more than two months ago. If it is a stream-bred rainbow, I would expect to see a few more dead wild rainbows to appear in other photos.

I think the "pink stripe" is just an illusion due to the fish being obviously dead and dried up.

The spots appear too large (to me) to be the spots on a rainbow however that spot pattern is exactly what I see on wild Bushkill browns.

All this speculation brings us to the most important question:

Stocked or wild? 😉
Click to expand...
Let's not lose sight of the real issue here debating what species of fish this is, or whether it be stocked or wild. The real issue is how damned many times this has to happen before the real issue is adequately addressed?
 
Bamboozle said:
I'm basing my uneducated guess on the fish being a dried up brown and not a rainbow on a couple of things...

All the wild fish I've caught in the Bushkill around Tatamy (Section 4) over the years have been wild brown trout. I can't recall a single rainbow even though I know they are stocked in Section 5.

I know it means nothing but I have caught what appeared to be stream-bred rainbows in few other streams in Northampton County over the years, but the Bushkill isn't one of them.

IF the fish is a rainbow and stocked, it looks a little small to me for a stocker that would most likely be from stockings more than two months ago. If it is a stream-bred rainbow, I would expect to see a few more dead wild rainbows to appear in other photos.

I think the "pink stripe" is just an illusion due to the fish being obviously dead and dried up.

The spots appear too large (to me) to be the spots on a rainbow however that spot pattern is exactly what I see on wild Bushkill browns.

All this speculation brings us to the most important question:

Stocked or wild? 😉
Click to expand...

I only asked if it was wild rainbow because I know that stream was not known for them. One of the links provided has a better picture of that fish and I agree that it is a brown trout. If you zoom in you can see orange spots on that illusion we all thought was a pink stripe.

Now back to the issue at hand.
 
moodyblues said:
Let's not lose sight of the real issue here debating what species of fish this is, or whether it be stocked or wild. The real issue is how damned many times this has to happen before the real issue is adequately addressed?
Click to expand...

Well, unless the place is already shut down as a result it will have to happen one more time at least before anything will be done at all...
 
HopBack said:
...Now back to the issue at hand.
Click to expand...

As someone who lived in Northampton County since the early 1990's before moving in the 2020's I've seen this Bushkill thing more than a few times so I'm hardly unsympathetic...

I once saw the Monocasy BONE DRY north of Butztown during a drought. That de-watering was exacerbated by the quarries north of there. There is an ongoing problem with sinkholes in the area, many directly attributable to the quarries in the region. I've also seen problems caused by the Union Quarries on the banks of the Letort.

My opinion has always been quarries and creeks are not a good mix. However, it will happen indefinitely in Tatamy unless there is a mandate for 100% or more redundancy in the system and reliable standby power so the pumps couldn't be off-line for more than the amount of time it would take to switch things over.

Because even IF the quarry closes, SOMETHING or SOMEONE will have to maintain the pumps to keep that groundwater flowing...
 
Bamboozle said:
As someone who lived in Northampton County since the early 1990's before moving in the 2020's I've seen this Bushkill thing more than a few times so I'm hardly unsympathetic...

I once saw the Monocasy BONE DRY north of Butztown during a drought. That de-watering was exacerbated by the quarries north of there. There is an ongoing problem with sinkholes in the area, many directly attributable to the quarries in the region. I've also seen problems caused by the Union Quarries on the banks of the Letort.

My opinion has always been quarries and creeks are not a good mix. However, it will happen indefinitely in Tatamy unless there is a mandate for 100% or more redundancy in the system and reliable standby power so the pumps couldn't be off-line for more than the amount of time it would take to switch things over.

Because even IF the quarry closes, SOMETHING or SOMEONE will have to maintain the pumps to keep that groundwater flowing...
Click to expand...
If the quarry closed and the pumps were abruptly shut off, the stream would go dry for a while. But with no more pumping, the groundwater would gradually rise back up to its normal elevation. Then groundwater would once again maintain the baseflow of the stream.

The temporary period of a dry stream channel could be avoided by "finessing" the pumping, only pumping enough to maintain stream baseflow, rather than pumping large quantities to keep the pit de-watered, which is what they are doing now. Again, the groundwater level would recover, then the pumps could be shut down forever, and the stream's baseflow would once again flow from the groundwater.
 
Bamboozle said:
Because even IF the quarry closes, SOMETHING or SOMEONE will have to maintain the pumps to keep that groundwater flowing
Click to expand...
I fully understand why you would say that depending upon experience, but my experience has been that it can go either way. It’s case specific. I’ve seen flow from a spring(s) and a surface discharge apparently revitalized on two different streams after a mine and a quarry filled with water. I’m waiting to see what will happen or is happening in a third case as another quarry fills (or maybe has filled by now). It could affect two streams, one to the east and one to the west.
 
troutbert said:
The temporary period of a dry stream channel could be avoided by "finessing" the pumping, only pumping enough to maintain stream baseflow, rather than pumping large quantities to keep the pit de-watered, which is what they are doing now
Click to expand...
Do you know for a fact that the pumps are outside of the quarry? If not, that won’t work. I don’t know the answer. Maybe someone else or you do.
 
I don't know enough about anything to know what will happen but how long would it take a quarry pit that size to fill to the point of ending the problem IF it ended the problem; 5 -10 years???

If the stream was dry that amount of time I guess the question is what is worse, somewhat frequent short lived de-watering occurrences or a sustained lack of any water...?
 
Back in the day part of the Monocacy where it first flowed onto the limestone could be a sinking stream in the summer. However, when the stream reached the Camel's Hump where the limestone aquifer met a hard stop against the gneiss hill there were always springs and the creek never went dry below that. Mid 60's were a bad time for drought and a few limestoners had sections where they sunk. Even the Musconetcong R in NJ had some dry stretches in the 60's.
 
Part of the East Branch of the Paulinskill in Sussx Co. NJ was fed by the drainage from a limestone quarry and it was like a mini tailwater. It was in a flat swampy brush choked area and was very difficult to fish, but had good sized wild and holdover trout. Few people fished there except at bridge crossings. After the quarry shut down the flow was mostly surface water from the swampy area and it wasn't the trout water it once was. The quarry shutting down didn't help, but it was a different situation. The Bushkill was a large limestoner before the quarries and should go back if the quarries fill.
 
I was under the impression that dewatering a creek was a violation of Pennsylvania laws. It’s not my area of the law, so I might be wrong.
 
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